I’ve really come to like the “Best American ____” series of books, though I typically go in for the non-fiction series’.

Because of recently become much more interested in reading mystery genre books, I was hoping to broaden my reading by becoming quickly acquainted with some of the new mystery writers through a collection such as this. This particular collection is not one of my favorites. I struggled to get through this book and very few of the stories stands out to me. In fact this book challenged my understanding of what a mystery genre story is (or should be). I don’t know that I would have classified everything here as a mystery. This is neither good nor bad, except that I was expecting mysteries.

My favorite story here was “Antarctica” by Laura van den Berg. Yes, being the last story in the book makes it the easiest to remember, but because it features the location of Antarctica (a place I’ve long wished to visit) and a subject of theatre (my profession), I held a special affinity for the story.

I also enjoyed “Princess Anne” by Jim Allyn, which takes on a tone of a ‘typical’ mystery story.

Patricia Engel’s “Aida” also caught my attention and was a worthy read.

While this wasn’t my favorite collection in the “Best American” series, it certainly won’t stop me from checking new volumes. An individual editor’s taste can definitely set the tone for a collection such as this and the “Best American” series rotates their editors.

Looking for a good book? Best American Mystery Stories 2014 is not the strongest collection in the Best american Mystery Stories series, but it’s still worth a look if you’re looking to sample the mystery short-fiction market.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

There is a lot of good fiction on the market for young readers and Stolen Songbird, by Danielle L. Jensen is among that group of good fiction.

I was about to read a different book by Jensen when I saw that it was a follow-up to Stolen Songbird, so I thought I’d best read this one first. It’s a moderately quick, easy read, and definitely targeted to the young girl readership.

Stolen Songbird is a fairy tale not unlike Beauty and the Beast, in which a beautiful young girl is kidnapped and forced in to a marriage with, in this case, a troll prince. They both find the other unattractive (at first), but their union is supposed to break a long-standing curse that should set the trolls free. Cecile, the human girl, gets involved well beyond the parameters of a captive, royal bride, in to the troll politics and hierarchy, and learns of different factions and a brewing rebellion. Her own husband, Tristan, appears to be involved, and to complicate everything, Cecile is having tender feelings for her troll husband.

This definitely is written for a Young Adult audience where romance is unrequited and dangerous, and the closest thing to sex is stirring feelings.

Jensen writes well, and keeps the reader engaged. She has also created some very real characters. In some cases, perhaps, too well. Tristan and the trolls, for example, never quite come across as ‘trolls’ — either my own interpretation, or anything that was defined in the course of the story. If the term ‘trolls’ weren’t used regularly, there’d be no other way to know they were trolls.

But the book is about Cecile, and Cecile is drawn quite well. She is neither the whimpering fop, nor the super heroine. She is a blend of both in a very realistic way, and grows believably through the book. It is this ability to make Cecile ‘real’ and grow realistically that holds the reader fast.

The Stolen Songbird of the title refers to Cecile, who is stolen away from the humans and brought to Trollus. Cecile has a remarkable singing talent, which we are shown early in the book, and it clearly implies that her talent will play an important part in the story. But other than one small moment when Tristan hears her and his heart softens toward her, the singing never really plays a part in the story. This is very disappointing. Presumably it will come up again in the sequels, but in this case it is a missed mark.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story , I look forward to the next book in the series, and I think it’s precisely the sort of story that teen and tween girls will really enjoy, and some of the teen boys might as well, if they’d give it a shot.

Looking for a good book? Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen is an engaging read for teen readers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This is the second book in a series (trilogy?) and I have not read book one. There were times when I could tell I was missing something that had been revealed in the first book, but over-all, I felt that this was a very complete book by itself.

There are two faction of an alien race called the Quasing. Those factions are the Prophus and the Genjix. The Quasing appear to be nearly immortal but require host bodies. Though they currently inhabit humans, they have also lived in other animals throughout time. The Prophus and Genjix are at war and are fighting through the humans. It becomes apparent that the Quasing have formed the path of mankind and using man now for their battle.

What author Wesley Chu has done is created a remarkable and very real world, along with some wonderful characters. The Quasing communicate with their hosts, and with their millennia of knowledge they can be quite helpful, but being a superior race, they can also be quite condescending. Though reliant on having a host, it doesn’t seem to be too much trouble for them to switch hosts if necessary. The dialog between Quasing and human is quite fun and I often enjoyed these moments the best. Chu definitely has a keen ear for the humor.

Tao, and his human host Roen, are trying to discover what the Genjix are planning, and to stop their intentions of destroying the earth and the human race. The action is non-stop with battles happening on multiple levels (internal battles between Quasing and host; Genjix and Prophus; humans and humans; humans and Quasing).

I’d really like to read the first book, to see how this was set up, and I very much look forward to the next book. I’ve learned that you really can’t go wrong with a book published by Angry Robot.

Looking for a good book? The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu is a thrilling, original modern/urban sci-fi book that will grab your attention and keep you reading all the way in to the next book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

It’s been awhile since I read a graphic novel for review here (please note that the reviews often come out two to three months after the book has been read and the review has been written; and that they are not necessarily released in the order read/reviewed) so I digitally grabbed the first one available to me … something that I would have no pre-conceived notions toward … and read it. That book was Drifter, Vol 1: Out of the Night, written by Ivan Brandon and illustrated by Nic Klein. And I am hooked.

The story starts out with a fairly common, if not over-used idea of a pilot/astronaut crashing on an alien planet. At one point I half expected to turn a page and see an Ape enter in the panel. There though, the similarity ends. The planet hosts a variety of alien surprises, though apes don’t seem to be among them, and that’s just fine.

The planet holds a mystery (nay, mysteries) and we readers are no more ahead of the game than Abram Pollux, the only survivor of the crash. The planet is inhabited and ‘civilized’ in a rogue-ish, western, backwoods sort of way. He is rescued by a girl, who represents what might be considered ‘the law’ but might also be a bounty hunter. Pollux, alone, lost, and seeking answers, remains defiantly human and does things his own way, rather than trying to adapt to the rules of the planet, which only further complicates his alone-ness.

This first book establishes some very interesting characters and sets up some a lot of questions with few answers. As a comic/graphic novel, author Ivan Brandon is clearly setting the reader up for a much longer story arc. While it is disappointing that there aren’t any completed stories within this 128 page graphic novel, there is enough intrigue here to keep me interested. Typically, I don’t expect a comic book to have a complete story in each issue, though it would be smart to compile each graphic novel so that there is some sub-plot story-line that concludes to give the reader some sort of closure. But the mysteries are set up very well, and I’m certainly interested in reading future issues in order to find some answers. These are well set-up mysteries and the characters odd enough to also keep us reading to learn more about them.

The artwork, by Nic Klein, is beautiful and very much suits the story.

There are graphic novels that you read and no matter how much you like the story, it’s still just a story. But this is one of the few books that really drew me, and had me fully engrossed in the world and its inhabitants, and has me wanting to keep reading.

Looking for a good book? The graphic novel Drifter, Vol. 1 by Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein is a sci-fi mystery that has qualities of Shakespeare’s Tempest and draws the reader in with more questions than answers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A little more than a year ago I reviewed the first March book. You can read that review here. The review copy that I received is only one-quarter of the full book, but I think it’s safe to say that Book 2 is every bit as powerful and inspiring as was Book 1.

As I write this, the rioting in Baltimore is making headline news around the country and since I reviewed the first book, there have been tremendously horrible deaths of black men in police custody around the country that have been making news. This series of books by John Lewis seem ever more important to remind the country … the world … of the struggles for equality that have already taken place, and how far we still have to go.

It is amazing the fortitude that people have to resist peacefully, to take continued beatings, and to return to the peaceful protests. If it doesn’t move the reader to see (literally ‘see’ since this is a graphic novel) people stand in line to buy movie tickets, told that the won’t be served because of their skin color, and then return to the end of the line to do it again, and finally get beaten for it … then the reader lacks any sort of human empathy.

And what more can you ask from any book, graphic or otherwise, than to move the reader and to inform the reader. This does both, extremely well. And just as the first time, the art is a perfect enhancement for the story.

You can’t go wrong with this, and I hope it will become standard reading in schools all across the country.

Looking for a good book? March, Book 2 continues the historical look at the struggles of African-Americans to be recognized as humans and equals in the United States and does so in a nearly perfect manner that will be read, enjoyed, and understood by adults as well as children.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Although many readers are familiar with names like Stephen King or Peter Straub, or even H. P. Lovecraft, writing a novel-length horror tale is no easy task. Sustaining a high level of horror or fear through the development of a plot and the establishing of characters is tricky and it’s easy to lose the horror when building the story. Author William Ollie manages to keep a strong sense of mystery and horror throughout his book, Sideshow.

Thirteen year old boys Justin and Mickey observe a carnival sprout up in a field near town. “Sprout” might be the operative term here as it doesn’t just go up in stages, like most carnivals, but rather seems to grow. Aside from the strange way that the carnival appears, the carnival is also unusual in that it isn’t set up in the usual place that the annual carnival usually sets up. Instead, it is set up in a field where atrocities once occurred by some of the city’s leading citizens decades ago.

The adults of the town investigate the appearance of the strange carnival, but quickly become enthralled with Hannibal Cobb, the carnival’s magician, and all that he brings to them. But their secrets are not so secret, and Cobb will show them some unkind truths.

Author William Ollie does a very nice job of establishing a mood (so important in good horror fiction). The carnival is so fully defined that one can almost smell the corn dogs. And yet he’s also built in an air of mystery surrounding the show.

The characters are slightly less well-defined, though the use of teenage boys to observe the happenings is a nice touch (typically teenage protagonists would make this a Young Adult novel, which this most certainly is not). The writing itself is smooth and Ollie grabs your attention and holds on to it throughout the book.

Looking for a good book? If you like fiction that keeps you on edge and terrifies you a bit, then Sideshow, by William Ollie is probably just the right book for you.

It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed the 24th book in the Agatha Raisin Mystery Series, Something Borrowed, Someone Dead, and now we have book #25 in the series and I have to say that Agatha Raisin is growing on me.

In The Blood of an Englishman, Agatha encounters a murder at a local pantomime performance (ie: community theatre). Perhaps it was this theatre setting which appealed to me the most (coming from a theatre background, as I do), but it took no effort on my part to picture the setting and the theatrical characters.

It is, of course, every mystery writer’s goal to create unique characters for their detectives, but I think author M.C. Beaton has out-uniqued them all. Agatha Raisin is unlike any other detective I’ve ever encountered. She’s a cranky old lady who is man-hungry, but has a knack for solving crime.

Most of the other characters are fairly stereotypical, but they’re fun. Beaton is writing light-hearted mysteries which means that making them fun is a priority, and this is a success in those terms. You can’t go into this expecting a deep, dark mystery that will make you work hard as a reader. Rather, this is a diversion. This is the sort of book you pick up because you like mysteries but you want something that you can read at the bus-stop, and you want something that is more entertaining rather than something that makes you think.

This is not a book (or even a series) for everyone … not even for all mystery readers … but there is definitely an audience for this type of book (you don’t have twenty-five books in a series if it isn’t any good).

Looking for a good book? If you are in the mood for a light-hearted mystery with a cantankerous, and very unique leading character, than this is a book worth checking out.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.